


the inspiration for eternity

by Merakkli



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon-Typical Death, Child Injury, F/M, Flashbacks, Major Character Injury, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Open-ended major character death, This Is Sad, i did not mean for it to be this sad, mipha's grace doesn't transfer/exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27249115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merakkli/pseuds/Merakkli
Summary: Link had come to Mipha injured as a child before. After 100 years, years she thought she'd spent preparing, she should know what to do. How to heal him.She doesn't.
Relationships: Link/Mipha (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 49





	the inspiration for eternity

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Hylianfury for betaing

Mipha had first seen Link with a spear through his gut.

He’d been so young at the time, too young to be staring down at the red-tinted metal in such undisguised shock, like he’d thought himself invincible until he’d seen the blood down his front. And Mipha herself hadn’t yet hit her growth spurt, likewise too young to know the dangers of the lizalfos that stalked the Domain, too young to have warned him in nearly enough time. 

In the reaches of her memory, she remembers many voices screaming and what might have been Link’s father, tearing through the monster in a stroke of his blade and cradling his son, his son who was not yet old enough to properly hold a weapon of his own, lashing out at any well-meaning zora who came within range of his fists.

She remembers how he’d frozen up watching her, the smallest out of any of them, too young,  _ too young  _ to have left the Domain so soon. Too young to know the right words for it.

But old enough to love.

Link had left the Domain that evening, weak but alive, stumbling over his own feet every few paces as he tried to turn around and stare back at Mipha. She’d waved after him every time, only stopping for the zora trying to clean the blood from underneath her claws. The questions had only come the day after, once the shock of a hylian’s mortal injury had eased.

Even then, the memories were already blurring in the shock following blood and panic. But she remembered his face. She remembered the spear.

The spear is long gone now, vanished with Waterblight when the malice it was made of imploded in on itself.

Link falls to his knees in front of Mipha’s spirit, swirling more red into the water the more he’s submerged, and she knows the damage remains. When she reaches out, awakens her powers on instinct and  _ fear _ , nothing happens.

He gasps, thrashes weakly in the water as though he could grab ahold of it and push himself back to his feet. The first word Mipha hears him speak is her name. 

“Don’t move,” she whispers, hundred-year old nursing experience reminding her not to scream. If Link hears her, he ignores it. He reaches for her like he’s drowning in the shallow water. His hand passes straight through.

“Mipha,” he says again, like a plea, like a prayer. 

For a few moments, his face is filled with pain and fear. Then he smiles. There’s blood in his teeth. “Thought I’d never see you again.”

She wants to comfort him. She wants to  _ heal _ him, like they’re young again and she barely has the presence of mind to understand how close of a call it truly is. It fills something viscerally empty in her to be wanted after so long.

“The scourge of the beast is gone. You have freed me.” She swallows tightly and wishes she could present it to him as a celebration. She had promised herself to never add to his anxieties. A vow long since broken. “I will leave soon. To defeat Calamity Ganon, and then…”

Link huffs, pressing a hand gingerly to his stomach. “Seems we both have somewhere else to be. Who says...we have to listen?” 

He pauses, breathing labored, and Mipha crouches to be by his side. The spirit-glow around her lights his blue eyes up with fire that might once have truly been there.

“Do you remember that time on Vah Ruta?” He coughs. More blood swirls into the water. “We made so many promises. I couldn’t keep any of them.”

Mipha raises her hands, to soothe him, to heal him,  _ by the goddesses _ she wants to heal him more than anything she wanted in life. The nurse in her reminds her not to scream, not to cry, not to panic him like she swore she wouldn’t.

She smiles and leans closer like she could rest against his trembling shoulder.

“I wished, then, that after the calamity struck, we could go back to how it was when we were children.”

If she laughs, it catches in her throat. It never seems to reach the outside world.

“Link. Link, I didn’t mean like this.” 

Against the soft, wet sounds of his skin tearing, Link reaches out for her once more. His fingers never quite seem to brush against her skin.

“You wished for us to have more time, too,” he breathes, like his throat is just as tight as hers. “I’m not...I’m not going anywhere, Mipha.”

One hundred years in the making, and this is how it will end. A mockery of how they began.

If she were real, tangible even, she would trace the spiderwebbing scars across his throat with the slightest pressure of her claws. Instead she leans closer, more at eye level, so low to the water the blood in it reflects black and oily like tar.

“You’ve been busy in the past century, haven’t you?”

He laughs, a wheeze that catches in his throat, and drips more blood into the water. “Less time than that. Stay a while and I’ll tell you about it. We’ll spend our time together here.”

The mist around her hands clouds with blue, some taunting echo of her healing power hanging in the air around them both. Link’s wound doesn’t close. Their skin never makes contact with each other’s. 

She leans back, forcing a gentle smile, and nods.


End file.
